Laura is the founder and CEO of Transcend, which helps senior leaders overcome barriers to sustainable business growth by getting the most out of their people and teams. Recently, we sat down with Laura to discuss the qualities of a “fearless” leader, and to hear her thoughts on executive coaching, conflict management, and changing organizational culture.

Tell us a bit about your background. Why did you decide to lead Transcend?

Working in Fortune 100 companies and in strategy consulting, I saw first-hand how strategy, people systems, and teams succeed or fail based on culture, leadership, and the integration of strategy. A scientist and businessperson by training, I wanted to create a more effective way for organizations to perform better over time using data-driven and scientifically-proven methods for building people and organizations. When I started Transcend 15 years ago, we began working with senior executive clients to be more strategic in their planning of business, time, and resources; and we now work on developing or supporting high-performing cultures across all levels of the organization – starting at the top.

Since your company talks about “fear-proofing an organization,” how do you go about achieving that goal, given that many people view fear as something beyond their control?

Creating an organization that is “Fear-Proof” involves recognizing the impact that fear has on our lives on a daily basis. We are not talking about cowering in the corner fearing for our lives, but rather the small social and organizational fears that keep us stuck in patterns of behavior that may no longer be working. They keep organizations from developing healthy levels of trust, transparency, conflict, and innovation.

Fear is indeed out of our control. We all experience some level of fear each day, and we may not acknowledge the anger and frustration that develop from a deeper fear. However, as our clients develop a greater level of self-awareness and hone their own thinking skills to better recognize and manage their emotions, they can overcome the habits that inner fear generates, and also be more transparent about their feelings and aware of their impact on the organization.

When an organization is “Fear-Proof,” the individuals and teams support one another in managing the emotional content of interaction and reaction and become more intentional in creating relationships that deliver powerful business results. This allows leaders to be more strategic, more proactive, and more focused on the business.

If someone were to say to you, “It’s easy to talk about being ‘fearless’ when managing a team or company, but that doesn’t do much to reduce the real-world consequences of failure in the corporate world,” how might you respond?

Lately, “failure” has become a favorite word in the business community as a source of learning and growth. We know that there are real consequences for business failure. We also know that the science is clear on how fear impacts our ability to create success, and that fear of failure narrows our ability to think, innovate, and collaborate, and it actually increases our chances of failure at any given task. By overcoming fear, we are able to identify many more ways to generate business success and improve our probability of success.

Fear creates a state of stress and often overwhelms us. The magic level of stress to create focus and a state of intense concentration and productivity called “flow” is generated by excitement and vision for what you could create – and for some people, a little competitive drive. Fear creates an excess of that stress and drives us towards overwhelm, reduced creativity and focus, and more probability of failure. So the best way to improve your success ratio is to remove fear from the equation.

As a leader, what’s the first step in changing the culture of a team or organization into what you want it to be?

For a leader to change the culture of an organization, they have to be able to articulate clearly what they want to see and why it is important to the organization and its future. We work with leaders to identify core values and then describe them in terms of specific behaviors. We think about culture as a set of values supported by artifacts, rituals, and lore that reinforce the values and bring them to life on a daily basis.

The second thing a leader needs to examine is their own personal behaviors and that of their most senior team members. Are they living the culture as they want to see it, or is the culture perceived as something we want from “them” – i.e., other employees? People are excellent detectors of inconsistency, and they will always default to what you do, not to what you say. We believe that “The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate,” (Gruenert & Whitaker) and it starts with the most senior team. Talk about culture, identify behaviors, and practice them at the highest management level first.

What are some of the common leadership-related obstacles or challenges that are facing millennials these days?

Some of the most challenging issues facing leaders at any age are the rapid pace of change we are seeing in our economies, industries, and technologies that impact every aspect of our organizations. Most millennials respond somewhat differently to this pace of change because they have lived with a faster pace of change throughout their lives and have lower expectations of stability and consistency than older employees as they watched their parents experience layoffs in spite of loyalty to an employer. Millennials have developed different expectations from organizations, as well as how they can contribute to and what they might expect from these companies.

They are naturally more self-directed and thinking about the course of their careers from their very first job. They are looking for leaders who inspire and motivate – meaning less management and more leadership. This creates a real challenge for older leaders who did not receive this level of mentoring, feedback, and inspiration and are often unsure of how to provide it or even if it is appropriate. We also caution leaders to use these generational generalizations carefully, because there is much more individual variation than a generational stereotype would indicate. Some of the most important values for the millennial generation are also important for older workers, so learning to embrace their desire for purpose, collaboration, and greater involvement in decision-making will have a positive impact beyond the millennials in the workforce.

For millennials working to improve their own leadership, there is a need to focus on developing greater self-awareness and high-level communication skills to ask for and receive feedback, to assimilate into a new work culture, and to have transparent dialogue with their manager about long-term goals and mentorship requests. The organization as a whole can benefit from integrating greater transparency, collaboration, and development for everyone, and the millennial generation can be the catalyst for that shift in awareness and focus.

When it comes to conflict management, what do many corporate leaders and managers tend to do incorrectly?

The most common challenge around conflict that we see is an avoidance of conflict. Leaders are afraid at some level that addressing conflict in a healthy manner will not be possible, and that in bringing it out into the open, the conflict will get worse. Many have even experienced conflict conversations that escalated and were not resolved. Conflict that is ignored or buried is conflict that grows and makes itself known in other ways, contributes to dysfunctional politics and a lack of collaboration and trust, and leads to disengagement by the people impacted by the conflict.

The leader doesn’t know a better way to engage in conflict, so they avoid it and hope that it won’t matter or will work itself out. Conflict can get emotional, and emotions are messy; and most leaders are uncomfortable dealing with emotion and prefer a “rational” approach. By not acknowledging the emotion and giving it a place, the emotions ironically tend to become more intense over time and create more problems for that team.

What can a CEO or high-ranking executive gain from executive coaching?

Senior executives are extremely busy and experience stress from a variety of sources, including their competitors, their colleagues, their shareholders, their boss, the media, and their direct reports. It can be exhausting just to keep up with the work and try to focus on the most important goals. At the same time, those executives often have a limited number of people with whom they can truly share their concerns. Family members get tired of hearing about it, and most of their day is spent with people who have a stake in the outcome and may bring some agenda to the conversation.

Executive coaching gives those leaders a safe place to unload their concerns, fears, and frustrations without judgment or repercussion, and a trusted advisor who can help them sort through priorities and perspectives to continue their own development in the role they hold. Great leaders never stop developing, and an executive coach who can hold a mirror to the CEO and help them see how they might be more strategic, more inspirational, or a better leader is a powerful tool to move the organization forward by giving the leader a boost. It also helps that executive to better manage their own stress and focus on the business and organization.

Looking ahead to the future, what will be the main traits and qualities of a successful and fearless corporate leader?

Successful fearless corporate leaders will be judged increasingly by their ability to deliver results year after year and develop an organization that grows. This comes from a greater level of self-awareness and an ability to develop strong collaborative relationships both inside and outside their organization; as well as to develop others effectively through feedback, mentoring, and coaching skills and to be able to align the organization with the strategy for executional excellence. These skills will allow a leader to develop change resilience in their organizations and help retain and develop the talent that is needed to compete.

Holly Knower is the CEO of the National Association of College and University Entrepreneurs (NACUE), which aims to ensure that as many students as possible have the right skill set to be able to set up their own businesses and to become more enterprising. We recently spoke with Holly about the state of entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom and what college and university students are doing to prepare themselves for entrepreneurial careers.

What types of assistance, instruction, and resources does NACUE offer to students who are thinking about becoming entrepreneurs?

NACUE is an advocate for providing a practical and hands-on education, and enterprise societies are pivotal in this, as they honor and champion the success of young people who are acting as catalysts and ambassadors for peer-to-peer engagement. Enterprise societies are formed of dedicated, passionate, and proactive young people with a genuine desire for entrepreneurship. Our community is encouraged to utilize their time at college or universities in trialing their startup ideas in a safe environment. As part of that, we’re delighted to be able to support their entrepreneurial journeys throughout our interactive events cycle during the academic year.

We work collaboratively with Tata in providing students and graduates with the opportunity to win startup funding as part of our Varsity Pitch Competition. We’re also proud to be able to connect like-minded individuals at our Student Enterprise Conference and provide recognition through our annual Leaders Summit.

How well are universities in the UK preparing students who are wanting to become entrepreneurs? What could these institutions be doing better?

Universities within the UK are going to great lengths in encouraging enterprise and entrepreneurship within their institutions. Over the years, we have seen an increase in the number of embedded incubators at universities and dedicated extracurricular activities to support students interested in entrepreneurship as a viable career option. But collaboratively, we could offer much more support and guidance to young entrepreneurs.

Given that university students are conditioned to avoid failure in their studies and courses at all costs, how do you go about changing entrepreneurship students’ image of failure into a less nihilistic viewpoint which emphasizes learning from mistakes and trying again?

The negative connotation of “failure” should be perceived differently since it is ultimately a learning platform, particularly in relation to entrepreneurship. Failure should be portrayed in a positive light; we need to recognize the efforts that entrepreneurs go through on their journeys. If they are perceived to have “failed,” this will have provided them with an array of expertise and knowledge that they wouldn’t have experienced with “success.” Young people should then be actively encouraged to “try again” and learn from their previous errors in developing a successful startup!

What can students do outside of their university coursework in order to prepare themselves for the world of entrepreneurship?

Students need to have an “entrepreneurial mindset” within the workplace, regardless of the sector they are interested in. Taking advantage of any activities which their institutions are offering will provide them with additional skills to take into the workplace and ultimately make them more employable. Entrepreneurs in particular need to have a strong network around them that consists of both knowledge experts as well as support mechanisms. They should also be actively exploring opportunities, attending external events to widen their team, and meeting mentors and investors.

What are some of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurial students make when pitching their ideas to potential partners or investors?

They clearly need to be able to articulate their business idea within a short space of time (60 seconds) while covering the topical points. A common dilemma we regularly hear from students is that they are afraid to discuss their ideas because of the risk that someone might replicate them. That’s why they need to learn to describe their idea without giving it all away. It’s risky, but achievable.

What do you foresee for the future of new businesses and entrepreneurship in the UK?

We believe that we will continue to see an increase in the number of students taking the launch in starting their own business. The next few years are going to be interesting ones with Brexit, but also full of new opportunities for entrepreneurs willing to explore them.

Joshua Spodek is an adjunct professor at NYU, leadership coach and workshop leader for Columbia Business School, columnist for Inc., founder of Spodek Academy, and author of Leadership Step by Step. We recently spoke with Joshua to hear his thoughts on how today’s leaders can improve themselves and their ability to lead companies or teams toward success.

As someone who is well-educated in a variety of disciplines, could you tell us what drew you to the study of leadership?

With a Ph.D. and an MBA, I learned a lot in school. Studying and teaching leadership attracted me because it taught me social and emotional skills, not just intellectual knowledge. Learning traditional subjects may have made me smarter, but leadership helped me improve my life, especially my emotional well-being and relationships. The more I teach and coach leadership, the more my students and clients inspire me with their achievements through doing the exercises in my book and online courses.

Since you’re one of the relatively few Americans who has visited North Korea, could you tell us whether the portrayal of that country in the media is accurate? What surprised you most about what you saw there?

I should first mention that I have no pretense of having seen most of the country. Foreigners only see what they let you see, which is a propagandistic facade. Still, they can’t hide everything. What surprised me most was how, despite the incredible differences between cultures, people are people. Seeing how they act under very different conditions illustrates what we all share as humans.

As for what was accurate, since I was there for the hundredth anniversary of Kim Il-Sung’s birth, I saw many people mourning him. I believe their tears were genuine, despite what we know about how he hurt the country. Of course, the people they let us see were the elites in Pyongyang, so they probably didn’t suffer as much.

Which aspects of leadership do your clients struggle with the most?

Putting new skills into practice. Everyone knows what skills they could use: self-awareness, listening, empathy, grit, perseverance, hustle, passion, and so on. We’re swimming in advice on how to create purpose for people we lead, from TED talks and books to magazine articles and everywhere else. But knowing self-awareness is important doesn’t make anyone self-aware. You can’t read your way to integrity. You have to act. What we lack is specific, actionable instruction on what action to take to develop these skills. Schools don’t teach these things, nor do nearly any managers.

In order to be an effective leader, why is it important first to understand yourself?

Great question! Many people skip over this part. When we talk about understanding yourself, we don’t mean knowing that you have a skeleton, organs, and other obvious things. We mean understanding your beliefs, emotions, motivations, and more subtle things. If you don’t know your motivations, you can’t control them. That makes you reactive, meaning you’re not in control. Either someone else is, or you’re acting randomly – which is the opposite of leadership.

Is it possible for someone to be an effective leader and still have “fun” while doing it?

Yes! As with any active, social, expressive, emotional, performance-based field, like playing a musical instrument, acting, dance, or the military, the more you practice, the more skill you develop. When you reach mastery, you become fluent. You act with freedom. You discover even more about yourself, which you express with less inhibition. That freedom to express yourself and act as you want is about the most and deepest fun you can have in life. The innocence you gain is like being a child again.

What is your approach when it comes to leaders engaging in conflict resolution?

Resolving conflict is similar to what I consider the core of leadership: to behave and communicate in ways to make others feel comfortable sharing their emotions and motivations, then connecting them to your task so they want to do them. Resolving conflict means that the task involves someone else with a different goal, which is an external constraint. From a leader’s perspective, you’re still working with people’s emotions to help them reach a goal. A leader solving an emotional problem with people is like a carpenter solving a problem with wood. Our tools of the trade are our social and emotional skills, which we use like carpenters use saws and drills. We’re still problem-solving, just in a different domain with different tools.

If someone were to say to you, “The only way to learn how to be a good entrepreneur is to try, fail, and repeat,” how might you respond?

I would say, “I agree.” The challenge is to overcome the fears, anxieties, and other inhibitions we’ve developed to protect our vulnerabilities around failure. Just to know the path doesn’t make it easier to get on it. I developed my courses to help people take simple steps to start that path and learn to enjoy it. I wish more people recognized the social and emotional challenges in taking responsibility and initiative.

What skills will the successful leaders of the future have to learn and master?

As I said, people know what skills they need. The challenge is developing them, so I suggest a more important question is, “How can people learn the skills they want?” I’ve found among seasoned professionals, recent graduates, university students, and even high school students that active, experiential learning from an experienced teacher who knows all three elements of theory, practice, and teaching competency imparts those skills like nothing else. No amount of lecture, case study, videos, research papers, and such will give you passion, vision, and so on.

Ibrahim Jabary, who was named “Innovator of the Year” in 2016 and 2017 by Elearning! Media Group, is the CEO of Gamelearn, which specializes in game-based learning for corporate training. We had a chance to pick Ibrahim’s brain about the concepts behind game-based learning, and to hear his thoughts on what role this method will play in shaping the corporate leaders of the future.

Tell us a little about yourself. How did you become interested in the idea of using video games as a company training tool?

I had been working in the field of learning and development for more than 10 years. But there was a moment when I realized that in order to grow, achieve an economy of scale, and be truly global, we needed to move to e-learning. When researching what was on offer, we discovered that traditional e-learning had two very serious and widespread problems:

It did not provide the opportunity to learn through experience and feedback, which is something everyone had come to expect from traditional training.

It was not very engaging, and therefore, only 25% of students who began an online course managed to complete it.

The solution we came up with was the following:

Use simulators to ensure experiential learning and to be able to provide personalized feedback to students.

Use video games to gamify training and thus increase completion rates.

And the results proved us right. We are able to get students to learn without the need for classroom sessions, and we have achieved a completion rate of 94%. Scientific studies also confirm our theory. Time and time again, the findings are conclusive: video games facilitate the memorization and retention of knowledge, increase employee engagement, and obtain higher completion rates. It is actually very simple: when we play, we learn better.

What are some of the biggest challenges that companies face today when training millennials who have recently graduated from a college or university?

Millennials have changed the rules in many fields, and training is one of them. This generation wants more freedom to choose; they are a mobile generation, they want engaging courses, and they appreciate flexibility, transparency, and feedback. We have to adapt our LMS to the new demands of millennials, which include making it more social and more useful.

Many of these trends apply not only to millennials, but also to the whole workforce. Human resources departments have to understand that there are millions of courses out there that employees can access (through Google and MOCCs), so you have to focus on finding the best content for them. Times have changed, and so should corporate training.

When employees rely heavily on video games for their training, does that prevent them from experiencing the sense of camaraderie or collaboration that they would while undergoing conventional team-based training?

Not really. Many games can very easily become social games. For example, if there are rankings among colleagues, you can check how you are doing compared with other employees. This simple fact very often becomes a social experience in which workers get to know each other, compete, and talk during and after the games. In our game on customer service, we also allow users to give presents to other players and send messages to their colleagues. All this means is that it is possible to use video games and at the same time develop a sense of collaboration and camaraderie in your organization.

How does using video games to help train employees reduce corporate training costs without sacrificing the quality of an onboarding program?

On the one hand, game-based learning has all the advantages of e-learning. You can apply economies of scale and you have the ability to train thousands of employees at the same time all over the world. You don’t need to pay for flight tickets, hotel rooms, meals, travel time, and opportunity costs; everyone can play wherever they are and whenever they want, which is very valuable for multinational companies with workers on five continents.

On the other hand, thanks to advanced simulators and gamification techniques, video games have been scientifically proven to obtain higher completion rates, more engagement and better knowledge retention than traditional training. Our results demonstrate that not only is the quality of the training not compromised, but in many cases it is actually improved. Some 97% of our students recommend the courses and believe that what they learned was useful and can be applied to their job.

If a corporate executive were to say to you, “I don’t think computer training programs can succeed in teaching the important ‘soft skills’ that are needed in the real world,” how might you respond?

I would tell him that in the last few years, more than 1,000 corporations all over the world have managed to do this with spectacular results. I would explain that in many professions, it is now commonplace to use simulators to train real skills such as piloting a plane, driving a vehicle, surgery, police operations, military interventions, responses to emergencies, and much more. We have proved that the same principle applies to soft skills such as negotiation, productivity, leadership, and customer service.

And, of course, I would invite this corporate executive to play one of our video games. I think he would very soon realize that video games can simulate real-world situations in great detail, and that they offer very useful and practical training. Furthermore, video games create a safe and cost-free environment. Players can practice all the acquired skills over and over without any risk to the company. So video games can not only “teach soft skills,” but they also allow employees to “practice” them.

How can a company assess the individual talents or potential of their employees based on how they perform during their video game training?

We are a training company and would therefore never use video games to assess a student. A large part of games’ ability to teach lies in the fact that they can get us to behave in a natural way, relax, and allow ourselves to be guided. If we use games to measure or assess people, we will lose this key factor. But just because we don’t do it doesn’t mean it can’t be done. We are of the opinion that very soon, we will see video games being used as a tool to appraise and recruit staff at all levels.

How should a company go about convincing middle-aged or older employees to embrace the idea of using video games for corporate training?

There is this idea that video games are a teenager business, but that is not the case anymore. In countries like the US or the UK, the average age of a typical video game player is 35 years. From our experience, we can say that some of our biggest fans are employees over the age of 60. We all like to play, no matter what our age.

Furthermore, the main objective of a serious game is to teach, not to have fun. When employees start a game-based learning program, they realize that the video game is only a tool and that they are learning from the very beginning. Game-based learning has proven to be an extremely useful method for both millennials and older people.

What do you foresee for the future of video game-based corporate training?

The way I see it, game-based corporate training has just started. When we released our first serious game in 2009, game-based learning basically didn´t exist. We had to do a lot of explaining because learning and development professionals hadn’t even heard of it. But right now, the scene has changed dramatically: the question is not if you should use game-based learning, but how.

Nowadays, game-based learning is the trend with the highest growth in corporate training. With more and more companies betting on video games, we will be able to develop better and more sophisticated products. I am convinced that in the not-too-distant future, education will be turned on its head through the use of gamification and game-based learning. I believe that at all levels, from schools and universities through to companies and business schools, the vast majority of training will contain gamification and simulation components.

Cris Beswick is recognized globally as a thought leader on innovation strategy, leadership, and culture, and is the co-author of Building a Culture of Innovation. We recently sat down with Cris to discuss the complex-yet-important process of committing to, establishing a culture of, and delivering organizational innovation.

Tell us a bit about your background. Why are you so passionate about organizational innovation?

I spent over a decade in the design and creative industry and have an absolute belief that design thinking, which fundamentally underpins innovation, can propel organizations forward, and make them truly exceptional. When we introduce the way designers approach problems into traditional organizations, it fundamentally changes the way they approach “how” they do things. It forces deeper questioning and empathy, and that builds an understanding of customers, problems, opportunities, wants, needs, etc. When we can help organizations behave in this way, incredible things happen.

If a corporate leader were to say to you, “I’m not concerned with boosting innovation throughout my company. I’ve got a research & development department for that,” how might you respond?

I think the first answer to that question is to at least start with an element of empathy for that leader’s perspective. It’s easy to wade straight in with the usual “But if you don’t innovate you’ll die!” rhetoric, but they may run a business where that kind of silo approach is the best approach in the context of what they are doing at present. However, the bigger picture is always one where we look at innovation as a “mix” of activity. The R&D approach to innovation will always be focused on new product development, as that’s the function of that department. However, the R&D team won’t be focused on operation efficiency, marketing, customer experience, or business models, so the key is to get leaders to see that innovation impacts all parts of the business – so that innovation happens everywhere, every day.

What is “innovation maturity,” and how does it impact the way companies operate?

Innovation maturity is a way of describing (and more importantly, measuring) an organization’s current capability, approach, and culture in the context of innovation. I’ve built several innovation maturity assessments for different companies all over the world, and the core thing it helps drive is an understanding of what’s holding innovation back at any given time. These assessments also help create a framework for the change that innovation requires, and they’re typically structured around defined maturity levels. A great example of a typical innovation maturity structure outlines four stages of maturity: Novice, Apprentice, Professional, and Innovation Leader.

When you can understand granular perspectives on the things leaders are doing or aren’t doing to drive innovation, or whether middle managers are providing the right resources and environment for innovation, or if communication and understanding around innovation is at the right level across the organization, then you can build interventions to remove those innovation barriers and increase the components that enable innovation.

How do you go about convincing the leaders of a decades-old company or organization that improved innovation is vital if they wish to experience continued success?

I think most leaders now recognize that innovation capability is crucial, so having to work too hard to convince them that they should look at building innovation as a core capability isn’t as common as it was even just a few years ago. The numerous surveys and annual reports done by some of the world’s leading consultancies every year show that senior teams and CEOs are placing innovation in the top few strategic imperatives, so the case for change is well understood.

The other side to that is, if I do have to work too hard to convince a senior team that innovation capability is something they should look at, they probably aren’t an organization that’s ready for someone like me to help them. When we talk about innovation as an outcome of “what” and more importantly “how” an organization does things, it requires strong and courageous leadership. This “innovation leadership” requires alignment at that level around what is needed to push an organization forward into the future.

In most companies today, which is the bigger problem: a lack of innovative thinking at the highest levels of management, or a failure to identify or discover innovative ideas created by front line employees or middle managers?

I don’t think it’s a lack of “innovative thinking” at the senior level as much of a lack of understanding innovation and what it takes at the senior level. At its core, innovation only happens when enough people in an organization have the desire to solve problems and change things for the better for the future. However, many businesses are still too eager to label themselves as innovative. But you cannot simply proclaim this quality. Putting a crown on my head doesn’t make me the King of England, and the same is true when it comes to professing “we are innovative” or “we have the most innovative product on the market.” The reality is, only customers can label an organization innovative as a byproduct of what they do and how they do it.

That means innovation is really an outcome of lots of ingredients like behavior, habit, insight, collaboration, creativity, and so on. As a former designer, I was measured on how well I applied things like design thinking, entrepreneurship, empathy, and customer-centricity, and I now find we’ve come full circle in that nearly every business area is using these tools to deliver genuinely different solutions – and in turn drive innovation and shape the future.

Finish this sentence: “If you want to create a company-wide culture of innovation, the most important action to take FIRST is…”

Simple… build an innovation roadmap! Since innovation is a byproduct of building an amazing organization, that means it’s about people, and culture is crucial. That also means it takes time to put the right things in place and change behaviors, actions, capabilities, and mindsets. It’s also crucial to start out from day one with a clear picture of what that journey looks like as linked to the existing company strategy. I’ve seen far too many organizations dive straight into “being innovative” without any clear strategy, roadmap for change, or leadership understanding around what and how to drive innovation. My approach with CEOs and senior leaders is around three core activities: establish an innovation strategy, enable the innovation leaders, and then (and only then) start to embed a culture of innovation across the organization.

What advice might you have for organizational leaders to help them convince entrenched, rigid, and/or narrow-minded employees and middle managers of the value of innovation?

One of the key things that most leaders need to address is that middle managers in most organizations are what I call the “innovation gatekeepers.” For many, leadership may be top-down, and innovation delivery may be bottom-up; but I think building a culture of innovation is “middle-out,” i.e. done at the middle-management layer so it radiates it out across all levels above and below. I think it’s here where innovation either flies or dies. When you show middle managers how innovation can help them do their jobs better, they not only embrace it in their work, but also evangelize its value up and down the business.

The reality is, given the choice, most employees would love the opportunity to get involved in doing things differently, being creative, and (most importantly) solving the problems they see and face every day, especially for customers. The challenge is the people who manage the middle managers are the ones typically most under pressure to get those employees to deliver the core day-to-day business objectives. Yet the middle managers are also typically the layer that leaders pass the innovation baton to.

The reality is, middle managers have a unique understanding of the corporate strategy, day-to-day operations, and the relationship between the two sides of the business: leaders and employees. Furthermore, they are the ones who are most under pressure to deliver outcomes that positively impact the customer and the balance sheet.

Since many companies acknowledge the need for innovation, what are the traits and qualities of those who will actually accomplish this goal and succeed in the future?

One specific challenge of innovation is its relative newness, especially for businesses that need and want to embrace it. When we talk about building a culture of innovation, there’s still a huge gap in understanding what that means. This is very different from fostering a culture of compliance or a culture of customer experience; those strategic objectives are very well-known. But when it comes to innovation, very few people know how to even define it for their organization, let alone democratize it and leverage it across the organization.

However, what we see when we look at organizations that have embraced innovation as a cultural capability and are delivering truly amazing things for customers is that they’ve understood not so much what they needed to learn, but what they needed to unlearn. And from my experience, the biggest proportion of unlearning is done within senior teams. All too often, it’s the core behaviors that are unconsciously embedded in their day-to-day work which end up being the most significant barriers to innovation.

The innovation vanguard companies have realized that the traditional ways of doing business block innovation and just don’t work for the environment organizations must now compete in. To make sure these mistakes don’t pass to the future generation of leaders, I’ve worked with numerous CEOs, leadership teams and HR Directors to redesign their leadership development programs around the core behaviors of innovation.

Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to any of this, so the road to innovation will vary from one organization to the next. But unless CEOs and senior teams move on from making the decision and actually act to start building a strategic approach to innovation, then I would suggest they’d better be prepared to watch innovation-led competitors shape the future.

Jo Geraghty, the director of Culture Consultancy, has a global reputation as an expert in building high-performance cultures across multinational and fast-growth companies. We recently spoke with Jo about how to sculpt a corporate culture so that it is more effective in accomplishing organizational goals, as well as why leadership training is pivotal to a company’s success.

Tell us about your background. Why are you so passionate about corporate cultures?

It’s quite simple really. From working with a variety of clients from start-ups through to multinationals, I’ve seen over and over again the way in which corporate culture can make the difference between success and failure. I guess because I started out with Goldman Sachs, I am more attuned to the banking and finance arena; and time and time again in the recent decade, we’ve seen far too many instances of culture failures leading to all sorts of things – including misselling.

Those failures and others like them have been a lesson for all of us about the importance of strong culture in driving outcomes. You don’t get strong culture without engaged people, and I’m a firm believer in the importance of people in business and engaging them in the strategy and values in order to deliver innovation and customer excellence. Your engaged employees can be your greatest advocates for success.

What is a “trigger signal,” and how might it indicate the need for a change in corporate culture?

I’ve always believed that if the leadership team feels that there is something wrong, then there generally is. But some of the key trigger points are significant changes in corporate direction (such as mergers and acquisitions), a move into new product lines, or a change of leadership. Then on the employee side, you may be looking at a rise in staff turnover, increased absences due to illness, disagreements between individuals or departments, or sudden silences when a member of the management team walks by. Apart from that, you also have things like increased wastage, a reduction in productivity, customer dissatisfaction, and so on. And even if none of these apply, leaders should still be keeping their finger on the pulse of culture to make sure that it stays relevant in a changing marketplace.

Is it often difficult to effect change at companies in longstanding industries like investment houses, banks, or law offices?

It can be, but you can also see the same challenges in fast growth scale-ups or in businesses of any size or longevity. It’s easy to point the finger and say that for banks or law offices, the challenge to change is harder because they are so heavily regulated; but that’s really a cop-out. When the culture isn’t right, the regulators are not only pleased to see change, they demand change.

Take innovation, for example. The financial regulators in the UK actively encourage businesses to come to them with innovative ideas and look to work with those businesses in order to help them to bring in new products and methods of working. What is difficult is when the CEO and the leadership team don’t assimilate the change into their daily decisions and actions. If it’s not on the top team’s agenda, it’s not going to be in the culture. The desire for change has to start at the top, and the leadership has to create the conditions which will allow change to happen.

How can a leadership team convince employees that a “change programme” is not just a euphemism for massive layoffs?

It’s all about communication and people engagement. Naturally, whenever any change is in the offing -whether it be an internal culture change, merger, or acquisition – people are inevitably going to be concerned. And this is where it comes down to employee engagement again and the relationship between the employees and the leadership. If people are really engaged in delivering good outcomes for the business, and if they trust the leadership to make the right decisions, then they will trust in the changes which the leaders are making. After that, it’s all about the 5Cs of communication; being clear, concise, consistent, continuous, and congruent.

If a new CEO or similar corporate leader wants to change the culture at his or her company, what should he or she avoid doing at all costs

Let’s start with the old adage, “Don’t do what I do, do what I say.” Telling people to act in one way and then doing something completely different yourself is a sure-fire way of convincing people that you don’t really support the change that you’re trying to bring in. This includes launching an initiative and then expecting the business to get on with it while you move on to the next best thing.

Then there is the classic, “From now on we’re all going to be (blank)” You may have spent ages planning, investigating, and drawing up the new shape of the organization, but it is unfair to your people to expect them to be instantly enthusiastic about a new concept which you’ve just thrown at them. You have had time to get used to the idea; so help them to get used to it as well.

Finish this sentence: “The biggest reason to implement a leadership training program within a company is…”

Its future! There is a lovely story that I heard in which one person asks, “Why should I bother to train people when they’re only going to leave?” to which the reply is, “What happens if you don’t train them and they stay?” Leadership is a journey, and if you want strong leaders to deliver a strong future, then you can’t start training soon enough. Apart from that, lots of the skills required for leadership such as communication, listening, taking ownership, seeing the bigger picture, and so on are the same skills which you need all of your people to display within an innovation culture. So by training your people for the future, the business is also benefiting now.

If a corporate employee were to say to you, “I won’t participate in my company’s leadership training initiative because I have no plans or desires to be an executive at this company,” how might you respond?

My first reaction would be that I have failed that person in not helping them to fully understand how they can personally benefit from boosting their own skills. Sure, not everyone is cut out for leadership; but when we stop learning, we stop growing. So the answer is to work with the individual to devise a pathway which helps them to continue to grow and to explore the areas which interest them to the benefit of the organization.

Interestingly, this is an area where diversity, inclusion, and equality come very much to the fore. Equality doesn’t mean treating everyone the same, but it does mean giving everyone an equal opportunity to maximize their personal strengths to do the best they can. When you have a diverse range of people all bringing their talents fully to the benefit of the business, then you increase the chances of having a strong innovative culture and great customer service.

For companies to remain successful in the future, what will their corporate cultures have to emphasize and focus on?

Innovation. It’s a one-word answer, but it can have game-changing consequences. If you have been tracking the surveys over the last few years, you would see that more and more CEOs have been putting innovation at the top of their priority list. But there is still an awful lot of misunderstanding about what innovation really is.

There is a difference between invention and innovation; invention is the process of introducing something new or different, while innovation does so in order to solve a genuine problem, add real value to the customer, and drive growth for the creator. Businesses with a genuine culture of innovation don’t simply look at product or service, but also strive to improve the system, process, outlook, attitude, and every aspect of the business in order to deliver differentiated customer excellence. Corporate culture isn’t just about reputation, profitability, or even employee engagement. It’s about improving the lives of customers and delivering something which they will genuinely benefit from alongside a great customer experience.

Joey V. Price is a recent SHRM Top 30 Under 30 Awardee and the CEO of Jumpstart:HR, a leading human resources outsourcing and consulting agency for U.S.-based small businesses and startups. We recently had a chance to speak with Joey about the current state of the HR arena and what companies must do to get the most out of their HR departments and/or personnel.

What are some of the recent compliance issues that are causing small businesses to alter their HR practices and procedures?

The false-start on overtime compliance regulation changes, potential minimum wage hikes, and the national conversation on immigration reform have small business HR experts on the edge of our seats trying to strategize for what comes next. The false-start around overtime compliance caused a ton of headaches since employers invested time and resources into telling staff members about drastic federal policy changes that ultimately never happened – and it made companies evaluate their business practices. Those business practices that were impacted by the threat of overtime rule changes include: employee scheduling, accessing email while off-the-clock, greater emphasis on ROI from a 40-hour workweek, and job misclassification for employees in roles such as administrative assistant and non-managerial corporate employees.

Minimum wage hikes will cause employers to adjust pay scales from the ground up. Some retail and fast food companies are moving towards chatbots and artificial intelligence to manage customer order taking/tracking and reduce labor related expenses. Immigration reform is a huge agenda item for our current president. It’s resulted in a cutback on corporate travel for foreign-born and naturalized citizens, a push for unity and stronger corporate D&I stances, and a look at hiring practices for STEM careers (positions often dominated in the H-1B visa application process). It will be interesting to see how each of these challenges plays out because they all represent external forces that impact the way small businesses conduct themselves.

If a startup business owner were to say to you, “I don’t need to worry about workforce planning for the future. I’ll just hire on more people as I need them,” how might you respond?

I’d simply tell them about the old saying “failure to plan is a plan to fail!” You have to visualize and plan for what a successful organization looks like, or you’ll be driven to change based on the flavor or fire of the day. Practically speaking, workforce planning while in the startup phase is the best thing you can do to chart a course for where you want a company to be and what values you want it to reflect. This is critical because it allows you to have clarity regarding the right person to attract to your organization and how to support them once they arrive.

This exercise adds value in the following measurable ways:

Workforce planning efforts become the basis of KPIs and goals for your staff to reach within a specified timeframe.

Hiring becomes less of a frantic, anxiety-driven exercise because you’ve already identified the kind of person who will work well in your company – and possibly even have developed a passive talent pool to draw from when you’re ready.

Workforce planning can also be the basis for career development within your organization and result in better retention and engagement for driven employees. Research shows that internal promotions done right are the best win-win situation for organizational growth.

What do you think is the trait or quality of job candidates or applicants that is the most undervalued by companies and business owners?

While it might not be the most tangible quality from an ROI perspective, enthusiasm about your mission and/or customer is a highly undervalued trait. The trait is so undervalued that it’s hardly brought up in the interview process! Imagine two candidates are interviewing for a sales position in your company. Both have equal experience and education, but one researched your company and the other did not. One can tell you a personal story about why they are so fascinated with your business and product and the other cannot. One asks questions about the company, when it was founded, why was it started, etc., and the other does not. Are you noticing a trend here?

The first applicant is highly engaged and motivated, while the other makes it seem like he is doing you a favor by granting him an interview. Engaged employees ask questions. Curious employees find new problems to solve. Active employees become brand ambassadors and will find new ways to promote your company at networking events, their kid’s soccer games, and on the subway. So when talent is equal, choose the person that’s done some research and is excited about your organization!

At what point in a startup’s or new business’s growth cycle should the owner surrender the task of personally hiring all new employees and let an HR person/department take over?That’s a trick question. HR should never “take over” hiring employees, but rather competently facilitate the hiring process. HR’s role in hiring employees is not to be the final say, but to weed out applicants that aren’t a good fit and to prepare hiring managers (owners or department heads) to competently participate in the hiring process in order to obtain an effective hire. Implying that HR takes over the hiring process abdicates the hiring manager from his or her responsibility to serve as a “subject matter expert” in the talent evaluation process. There should be a close relationship between HR and the hiring manager throughout the recruitment process.

As for when these two roles of “subject matter expert” and “process facilitator” should branch off into being completed by two people, that answer is “as soon as the owner can afford to hire someone to manage this process.” The owner (or hiring manager) should be the subject matter expert early on in the company’s lifecycle, but as roles in the organization come into focus and become more defined, the person managing the new hire should take on the responsibility of partnering with HR or your HR consultant/recruiter.

Finish this sentence: “The biggest problem that I commonly see in entrepreneurs or startup owners who have to oversee/supervise employees for the first time in their careers is…”

Not knowing when to call for help. People management is a highly evolved discipline, and many founders start an organization because they are experts at their “one thing” (which could be tech, PR, marketing, etc.). The challenge most founders don’t know that they have is that their blind spots in personnel management can be so glaring but ignorance (and naivety) is bliss. Trusting your gut and Google is not a people management strategy, and there are nuances to your organization, the people in it, and the geographic location of your company that often requires expert support.

Sure, a startup founder can be coach and mentor when it comes to developing technical proficiency, but what about mediating workplace squabbles? Is the founder well-versed on compensation and benefits that are fair and competitive for the people under his/her employ? Do employees feel like they can speak freely about their issues with the company, even though the only person who can fix the problem might be the one causing it? Many entrepreneurs learn through trial and error that it makes sense to hire or consult with an established HR professional who can lead or advise on HR and people management strategies and tactics within the organization.

What management qualities are more important for leaders of companies with around 100 employees than for leaders of companies with ten or fewer workers?

While there are more similarities between growth-focused management at any stage of the process, the key focus for larger firms should be assessment rather than assembly. It’s the pivot from “what are we doing?” to “how are we doing?” Companies approaching 100 or more employees should really be focusing on system efficiency and scalability, whereas smaller companies need to focus on system creation and establishing important KPIs.

At 100 employees, you’ve got to be confident in the team around you that something is going right, but you need to focus on process refinement and be open to potential blind spots in leadership, accountability, personnel development, and employee morale. Failing to solicit and embrace feedback can be dangerous. When you’re larger, redundancies and process errors have a huge ripple effect that can slow down growth, demotivate employees, and have a negative impact on your bottom line. Even the most high-performing team will have breakdowns over time, and each new day presents an opportunity to document and improve upon the day before.

What do you anticipate will be some of the major HR challenges for business leaders in the future?

The future is full of opportunities to embrace future waves of innovation and change in the way we do HR! Business leaders will need to embrace the role that HR tech will play in complementing business strategy and reevaluate the focus and utility of the HR professionals under their employ. Artificial intelligence will play an increasing role in HR customer service and create cost-effective training environments for employees seeking to learn more skills and practice customer service.

As HR Tech gets smarter and becomes easier to use, you will also see less of a need to retain administrative HR professionals and a greater need for HR consultants and partners who can strategize for the growth-oriented startup. These companies will no longer need someone to approve and count vacation days, but will desperately need a strategic partner who can advise on how to compete with aggressive competitors to attract and retain top talent.

Tech in HR will be important to incorporate, but so will an adaptable mindset when it comes to the diverse needs of our global workforce. High-performing organizations will need to figure out how to master the demands of a further stratified multigenerational workforce, what to do with millennials in management, how to address an increased demand in conscious capitalism by these same millennials, how to deal with increased instances of permanently remote workers, how to incorporate diversity and inclusion initiatives, how to leverage the gig economy, what the political implications of immigration reform are, and more. If you had to Google search anything on this list, then you’re already behind!

As a result, human resources must continue its charge towards a level of importance and influence in smaller organizations beyond purely administrative functions. HR – or talent management – will truly become both a strategic and tactical advantage, and the brightest minds in HR leadership will be who C-level leaders look to for what’s next. If the HR leader in your organization does not have a “seat at the table,” your C-level executives should at least be grabbing drinks and talking strategy with an HR leader they respect.

Jim Rembach is the creator of the Emotional Intelligence Customer Experience Design framework (EQCX) and the host of the Fast Leader Show. We recently asked Jim to elaborate on the concept of emotional intelligence and how it impacts leadership, and also to reveal some of the leadership-related wisdom he has learned from the leaders that have been featured on his podcast.

Tell us a bit about your background. Why did you decide to create your podcast?

I grew up in a very racially diverse area in the suburbs of Chicago in a blue-collar home with two older brothers and one younger brother. Like so many of us, I was heavily influenced by my environment. Several of the kids in my class became high school dropouts. Of those that did graduate from high school, few went on to continue their education. I was falling into the same pattern.

Luckily, my parents moved away as my father pursued a job within the same industry, but with a different company. The environment that we moved to was dramatically different from the one that I left. There, most kids did graduate from college and many of them continued their education even further. And I eventually became the first one in my family to receive an undergraduate degree.

Despite majoring in finance and real estate, I was unable to pursue my initial desired path of becoming an investment banker. Because I had some experience working retail, I eventually found my way to working for a company called AutoZone. They were in a hyper growth mode and my opportunities to advance rapidly were very attractive. Eventually, I was able to find a job in their call center, which grew rapidly to 800 seats in two locations in only a few short months.

After a couple years in the call center, there was a change in AutoZone’s senior leadership and they decided to close the call centers. I enjoyed working in call centers so much that I decided to leave the company and pursue other opportunities. Over the course of the next few years, I ended up working in a few call centers for different companies. Being able to see firsthand the impact of leadership on the business, the customer experience, and employee engagement has been priceless.

But I’ve always had questions. Why do people do the things that they do? How do people find a right fit? How do you engage employees? How do you engage customers? How do you engage with colleagues? How can you make a greater impact? How can you help more people? All of these questions and my never-ending desire to find answers combined with the joy that I receive by recognizing others are some of the foundational reasons why started the Fast Leader Show podcast.

Because of my operational experience, I knew beyond intuition that having engaged employees generates engaged customers. I also knew that having a customer-centric focus in my leadership practices delivers a greater impact to the company and those within it. Oftentimes I refer to it as human-centric, because we are working both inside and outside the organization.

What are some of the most commonly-cited leadership mistakes that the guests on your podcasts have admitted to you?

There are a few that I find to be common. But with the storytelling format of the show, how people discover their mistakes and the circumstances surrounding their mistakes are unique to the individual. One of the more common mistakes that people cite is allowing fear to rule their decisions. People allow fear to prevent them from exploring opportunities within their existing role or new opportunities, standing up to others, expanding their current role, doing what they know is right, and enjoying themselves. Ultimately, fear is an internal restriction. Sometimes the fear is purely internally manifested, while sometimes the fear comes from external forces and yet we allow it affect us. For all of us, fear is something that we must admit exists and learn how to manage it.

Finish this sentence: “The main reason[s] that over 80 percent of leadership programs fail is…”

Learning is only the beginning, development takes time. People have to practice leadership skills and attitudes. And they must have effective coaching to be led to success. The high failure rate of leadership programs has been around for a very long time. Measuring the return on investment (ROI) in leadership training and development is considered to be an important element in human resources and beyond. The ROI of training and development is frequently a topic presented and discussed at conferences, workshops, and professional associations. Journals and media regularly present the subject with more and more emphasis.

Yet nothing is changing. Executives have come to expect ROI projections and estimates in requests for leadership training and development funding. Leadership educators now find that asking for return on investment information is commonplace, but they’re frightened to reveal the true results. And they should be.

What are some of the ways that you see people sabotaging their chances to get ahead in their career?

There are three key ways I see people sabotaging their chances to get ahead.

Emotional Intelligence: People are not actively improving their emotional intelligence (EQ) skills. The evidence is very clear: those with higher EQ advance further and make more money over those with higher IQ. By not proactively improving your emotional intelligence, you are literally blocking yourself from moving onward and upward faster. You are costing you and your family a better livelihood.

Blending In: People are not amplifying their uniqueness and exploring ways to use their uniqueness to add value to others. They are choosing to fit in, keep their head down, and not make waves to stand out above the rest. Ironically, this behavior increases the chances of you being affected by downsizing and reorganization. Career security resides in being unique. It’s your responsibility to reveal it.

Coaching: Those that do not seek the support of a coach will be passed by those that do. All of the experts and masters of anything in the world have coaches. As individuals, we have blind spots to the things that are blocking us from obtaining what we seek. We all have unintentional blindness. A coach helps you to see what you can’t.

Could you give us some advice on how a leader can work on improving his or her emotional intelligence?

You can’t improve what you know nothing about. So there are two things to do. First, learn about the competencies you need to improve to increase your emotional intelligence. The next thing is to assess your emotional intelligence. Unless you know what you need to work on, you are not going to be efficient with your time and effort. Once you know what you need to work on, you must be willing to put in the practice to improve. Knowledge is not what improves your emotional intelligence. You must practice the new behaviors you’ll need to practice in order to experience any gains.

How does poor internal morale in a group or company tend to manifest itself in the external customer experience?

The symptoms of poor internal morale are presented in a multitude of different ways. The innocent victim in most of these cases is the customer. Poor morale can impact the customer experience by:

Chronic problems experienced

Poor product/service development

Low levels of feeling valued

Mixed messaging

Cumbersome interaction processes

Higher cost

More time invested

All of these symptoms end up pushing customers to your competition. Causes of these symptoms are most often misdiagnosed as technology or process problems. What people fail to realize is that people design, implement, and support the technology and processes. So it’s people that are the problem. And when poor morale and engagement are present, people don’t work well with one another.

What are some of the most essential skills that leaders of the future will have to learn and master in order to be successful?

Leaders of today have to do these things now to be successful. The future is now. If you want to rapidly accelerate your progression to greater levels of responsibility and compensation, you’ll need to master these four vital skills.

Perspective Taking: To be able to consider various points of view or assumptions about situations and people and to seek alternative options and choices. To view various situations through the eyes of others in order to better understand their behavior, positions, or requests.

Decision Making: You can’t merely gain perspective. With all of your perspective taking, you need to be able to make a decision and set a course of action. Knowing when to convert all of the insight gathered into a plan is key. Make a decision and move forward. And let your perspective taking continue so you can make adjustments when needed.

Persuasion: Nothing in an organization is done solo. You need to be able to persuade others of the merits of your decision so they work in concert to execute the plan. Being able to influence and persuade others to join you in the pursuit contributes to the outcome experienced.

Platform Building: In today’s noisy world, it’s more difficult to stand out from the rest. But for you to receive more opportunities to obtain greater success, you must. Creating a platform enables you to get seen and to be heard. Without it, you are just one of many. If you’re serious about taking yourself to the next level, you can’t succeed without a platform.

Shawn Overcast is a partner at gothamCulture with more than 15 years of experience quantifying the softer side of business by working with human capital departments from small companies to global Fortune 100 organizations. We recently talked with Shawn about the importance of employee engagement, leadership training programs, and effective corporate culture.

Tell us a bit about your background. What do you find interesting about employee engagement and organizational development?

I started my career as a training designer to develop a leadership training program in a rapidly growing startup. An annual employee engagement survey indicated that employee morale and culture was at risk of declining, and senior leadership wanted to act fast. After I followed this program from design through implementation and then measured the impact on the organization, including the impact of employee engagement, retention, and customer service, I was sold. But this was more than just a training effort. We established principles of leadership, expectations for leadership, and a new performance management system. Employee engagement matters; people are capital inside an organization. Their behaviors affect performance, and performance affects financials.

Finish this sentence: “When trying to improve employee engagement at a company, the thing that you most definitely should NOT do is…”

Attempt to drive the results. If we’re only focused on a single measure, such as employee engagement, we’re missing the full picture of what else is affected and why. We certainly consider employee engagement in our approach, but we also seek to build a theory of change (or logic model) to explore all of the variables that drive employee engagement. Then we determine what other business results they drive.

We continue to work backwards to understand not only what actions led to or affected results, but also what inputs are required to support those actions. We don’t take action until we understand the full system and chain of impact. This rigorous assessment determines the appropriate interventions for the organization.

What is a common example of misaligned priorities between a company’s front-line managers and its senior leadership?

Perspective.Front-line leadership is continually focused on the day-to-day that’s in front of them internally. Their span of sight and control is narrower and more focused on the work that needs to get done by the team of people who report to them: the front line. They are typically concerned with issues of efficiency, productivity, quality, coordination and integration of process, individual capability, employee satisfaction, and even customer satisfaction.

Senior leadership is more closely aligned to the external face of the company: the C-suite, the board, and the customer. Their perspective is more broad and more long-term. They seek to meet the needs of external stakeholders by setting direction and guidance for those working internally. They are concerned about the financial success and viability of the company, the long-term implications of strategic decisions on the market, competition, and customer loyalty. These minor differences in attention and primary stakeholder needs lead to conflict and misalignment between these levels of leadership.

When companies actively assess their corporate culture, what types of surprises do they often discover when they study the results?

There are three “Ahas!” or insights that come from assessing workplace culture. The most frequent discovery is the difference in perceptions about the culture from different groups. This could be differences between levels of leadership, business units or locations, those with varying lengths of tenure with the company, or (in the case of a merger or acquisition) individuals from the new company and the legacy company.

Another insight is an imbalance in the company’s focus and acknowledgment of their “Achilles heel” or “soft underbelly. “Similar to the point above and the perspectives of senior leadership and middle management, some organizations as a whole tend to be internally or externally focused. A heavy internally focused company typically has a very empowered and capable workforce, likely one with long tenure. They also tend to have strong processes and are very coordinated and aligned on values and approaches to communication and decisions. Conversely, an organization more heavily focused externally has a strong handle and understanding of the market, is quick to adapt to the changing needs of the customer, and innovates and learns from mistakes quickly. The challenge with this imbalance is the risk of high turnover and not having the people around long enough to continue to deliver on what works best.

And third, leadership learns more about what they’ve taken for granted. Senior leaders act with the best of intent by establishing clear direction and strategy to ensure people are aligned, empowered, and capable. They ensure the organization is responding to the needs of the market, and that their processes and systems remain a competitive advantage for the organization. However, there are times where the message isn’t clearly articulated or strategy is lost in execution. This “Aha!” establishes priorities for where to focus communication efforts in the very near term.

How would you go about aligning the corporate culture of an organization which is plagued by internal politics?

Organizations plagued by internal politics often show up as siloed and have low coordination and integration. A culture assessment can objectively tell a story that is experienced every day by the employees working within this environment. We use an empirically-based assessment to capture this moment in time and are able to demonstrate to leaders the implications of their political behaviors and what can happen if interactions remain unproductive.

Step one is to assess the situation and dialogue — truly engage in collaborative discussion — about the current state. From there, a handful of advocates or culture ambassadors will likely raise their hands to take action on driving movement in the culture change process. Change starts with one, and momentum will breed momentum.

What are some of the roadblocks that you frequently see when trying to transform the organizational culture of a large international corporation?

Loss of momentum and involvement from senior leadership. Often, senior leadership is heavily involved during the assessment and dialogue phases, seeking to understand the problems and making decisions about priorities and level of investment for the culture transformation. But once work is allocated across the organization to continue the process, leadership gets focused on something else. Without continual focus, recognition, and communication from the top, it becomes difficult for new cultural norms and behaviors to take hold.

Competing priorities. This is often an output of the first. As leadership focuses attention on other aspects of sustaining (or creating) a high-performance organization, the efforts dedicated to culture become “old news.” Instead, culture and the interventions selected to support the transformation should be baked into the way everything else gets done, including all new efforts, investments, and priorities in the future.

Moving on before the new culture has truly taken hold. This is the challenge with looking at a single measure, such as employee engagement. These surveys are simply a snapshot in time. And simply doing a survey does not mean you’re engaging your employees. It is important to follow through and track, manage, and measure key metrics over time.

If a senior executive were to say to you, “I don’t believe in investing resources in a leadership development program, because my employees are likely to take what they learn and go work somewhere else,” how might you respond?

But what happens if they stay?

Generally speaking, what will the corporate leaders of tomorrow have to do better than they are doing today in order to succeed?

They’ll need to work on balance, or continue to focus on their organization’s strategic direction and intent, and respond to the changing marketplace. We learn that in Business 101. They must continuously evaluate their processes and organizational structure to ensure work is coordinated and conducted in an efficient and quality manner, and that their people have the tools, skills, and empowerment to do their jobs. They must view their people as an asset, not an expense. But most importantly, they should gain capability in finding balance across all of these.

They’ll also need to grow in agility and capacity to balance structure and sustainability with flexibility and continuous capability development; in other words, to focus on the needs of external stakeholders and stockholders, but not at the risk of compromising internal stakeholders (and sometimes stockholders!). They’ll have to balance the need to set direction, but ensure that their people have the tools, skills, and capacity to execute to that mission. Finally, they must maintain their competitive advantage in how they execute while staying just one step ahead of the competitors in the marketplace.

Corporate anthropologist Andi Simon is the founder and president of Simon Associates Management Consultants and award-winning author of On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to take your Business to New Heights. Recently, we had a chance to talk with Andi about corporate culture from an anthropological perspective and how this knowledge can be used to help facilitate organizational change.

What exactly is a corporate anthropologist, and how can this type of expert help companies?

During a recent interview, I was asked about anthropology in a complex corporate setting. The question was, “Don’t anthropologists typically study less known, small-scale societies? What are you doing studying organizations or corporations in complex societies?” In actuality, companies of all sizes are small-scale communities with cultural values, beliefs, and ways of doing things that are “sacred” and supported by their mythology and rituals. We just don’t typically think of them that way.

For almost a hundred years, anthropologists have been applying the methods, theories, and tools of cultural anthropology to complex societies. Examples include the cell phone manufacturer Erickson, who studied how teens used their cell phones (although they missed iPhone concepts); ReD, who studied Absolut Vodka consumption and why it was all about the stories people shared as opposed to the vodka itself; or Intel, who sent anthropologists into people’s businesses to see how they used technology.

In small or large communities, people cannot easily tell you what they are doing or why. They typically tell you what they think you want to hear. Through storytelling sessions, culture probes, and observational research, we better understand what they are “really” doing. We can also dig deeper into what it means to the individual, their social group, and the society of which they are a part. If we step out and observe, we can see all kinds of things that help the company and us better understand what they are “really doing” and how they could sustain their growth in new ways.

Briefly, describe the concepts behind the Blue Ocean Strategy. What benefits does this approach have for corporate leaders?

The theory, method, and tools of Blue Ocean Strategy were developed by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne and published in their book Blue Ocean Strategy in 2005 (and then in a new edition in 2015). The reasons we embraced the strategic approach were three-fold:

It is a very anthropological approach to seeing new markets, unmet needs, and ways to expand into new spaces that are not presently well-served.

The entire methodology is built on visualization, which we know from both the neurosciences and the social sciences is of critical importance for the individuals and groups of people to understand their perceived reality and adapt to changes in their perceptual maps.

It is grounded on the understanding that the current strategy was no longer of value in a fast changing business and cultural environment. Those who thrived were going to have to reconstruct market boundaries, make the competition irrelevant, create and capture demand, go after nonusers with unmet needs, and strategically build an organization around differentiation and low cost. As we applied these to client situations, we saw our clients rethink their strategies in ways that opened new markets and helped them return to growth and profitability – often in unexpected market spaces.

If a corporate leader were to say to you, “I prepare my employees for change by telling them ‘our business and company are always changing, so you’d better be ready for it and accept it,'” how would you respond?

This is a rather abstract approach and something that is inherently unsettling to people. Few people have any rehearsal time for a new role in a company or the practice necessary to learn how to do things in new ways. They hear words, but are rarely sure exactly what those words mean for them. Without the skill development, they make up what they think is meant by that statement and wing it. All the support for the changes needs to be in place as well as the overall communication, education, and expectation clarity required for people to understand what will now be expected.

If a corporate leader wants to change the culture of an organization, what is the absolute worst action that he or she could take?

Giving the task to HR. We are often called in when a new president has come into a company and decided the culture has to change. Rather than assuming responsibility for the transformation, he or she gives it to an HR person who typically knows little about the current culture, knows even less about how to change a culture, and really does not manage most of the organization that is supposed to change. Most importantly, the HR person doesn’t know what needs to be changed. Are the employees too controlling and hierarchical? Are they too innovative or ad-hoc? Perhaps they just want to make money and fail to collaborate?

Finish this sentence: “Before introducing significant change to a company or group, it is pivotal that a leader must…”

See the problem with a fresh perspective, feel the challenges faced by employees and customers (in experiential ways), and look at the data while carefully recognizing that it does not exist unless it is analyzed in the context of what is taking place. Additionally, we do not believe in turning a big ship with an oar. Leaders must be able to mobilize staff to better see, feel, and think about the changes required; or else their staff will watch the leaders try to change and not know where they are going or why they should follow. Why? Because change is literally pain.

The brain hates to change, and cultures are resistant to change as well. Change is very experiential. Unless people see it with their own eyes, they distrust what leaders are claiming and dispute the need to change. Even when they intellectually know that something is in need of change, people decide with their emotions, then justify them with logic or data. People live most efficiently in the habits of everyday life. Change is disruptive, and few know how to change comfortably.

If a person or group in a company is resistant or even hostile to a specific change, how should a corporate leader address the situation?

There are typically four hurdles we face when changing a company: cognitive ones where people don’t know “why” they should change; motivational ones where they don’t really want to change; political hurdles where people see power grabs challenging their positions and fight change; and resource hurdles where they don’t want to give up anything to change. Until that leader has a better grip on what the person or group believes are the roadblocks to change, it will be hard to address them. Often, we have a leader take the most outspoken resistors and turn them into leaders of the change process. We like to get those who have the most to lose to begin to see how their prior successes set them up for success in the future.

We don’t recommend bringing in a consultant to drive the changes. We do suggest that consultants are excellent for facilitating and enabling the process. But staff will rebel and undermine the change efforts if they are not engaged in the process. Therefore, use the consultants wisely and build engagement, educate often, and manage the expectations of the people who are being asked to change.

Since your site helps companies rethink their customers, organizations, and business strategy, could you tell us how often companies should be taking a fresh look at these areas?

There is growing awareness that we are at the end of a period of stability when your strategy could help you build a competitive advantage. Now, success comes from the great accelerators that are driving businesses to continuously assess their models from all perspectives: from customers, services, pricing, marketing, and people. It might seem difficult to move that quickly and keep the strategy under continuous evaluation. But it is necessary when things emerge, surge, and purge in a very short timeframe.

Not long ago, I heard the CEO of a major IT company talk about how their strategic planning had shrunk from a five-year horizon to a two-year horizon. He wasn’t even sure he could stay on strategy for two years. The real challenge for all companies is to have a strategy and a culture willing to have good metrics and data analysis to see what is working, how it is growing or shrinking, and how to adjust often and quickly to those shifts. With the right analytics, abundant data, and the ease to create solutions to test quickly, companies should once again see themselves as innovative entrepreneurs as opposed to those that rely on the “way we have always done it.”

In the future, what will be the most important leadership qualities that will be needed to succeed in a rapidly-changing business environment?